


Bound by the Sea

by Tasiec, Tsurra



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood Friends, Don't worry, Eventual Romance, Iwa's childhood friend is a seal here, M/M, Mild Hospital Shenanigans, More than just Selkies now, Rating for profanity - thanks Iwaizumi, Selkie!Oikawa, Selkies, Underwater Photographer!Iwaizumi, We like to think we're funny, a thieving seal, but we're not, caution for naked and sad bleeding human, caution for the small and sad bleeding seal, except Oiks is a seal, failed birthday parties, friends almost killing friends on accident, he was probably a lonely child, maybe give it some time, now with hungry whales!, probably, seal-slimed milkbread, selkie!au, they should both be fine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-11-11 13:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11149560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tasiec/pseuds/Tasiec, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsurra/pseuds/Tsurra
Summary: When Iwaizumi was small, he moved to a new town by the ocean. He wandered off by himself, slipping and falling off rocks onto a small beach. There he meets a seal pup who grows up to wander around town, with a somehow obnoxious amount of flamboyance and confidence.





	1. Chapter One - Beginnings

“You’ve been taking a lot of pictures of seals recently.” Irihata, his boss, said, looking over the newest collection of photos placed on his desk by the still slightly dripping Iwaizumi. He leaned over to look at the photos and groaned as he saw that damn seal in nearly every single photo. Now, not only had that seal stolen the shiny shells he had spotted and wanted to take home that day but now the exact same seal managed to photobomb literally every single picture Iwaizumi had taken. “There isn’t a single one without him?” Iwaizumi asked with a slight plead in his voice, making a mental note to strangle that damn seal the next time it did this shit to him. “Nope.” It wasn’t exactly the first time, but it had been getting extremely bad recently, despite the extra time Iwaizumi was devoting to meet the seal at the beach. The seal never seemed to be satisfied. “Shitty attention hog…” he muttered and his boss looked up at him inquisitively. To cover up his angry mutterings, he gave a nervous chuckle, scratching the back of his head. “I’ll book a boat and go out there tomorrow, reshoot the photos, make sure there aren’t any stray seals this time.” His boss gave a huffy nod in approval, looking over the photos once more and waving him away.  _ Stray?  _ He thought bitterly, rethinking his word choice.  _ He’s practically mine with the way he won’t leave me alone. _ Contemplating how having that seal as a fucking pet would be like, Iwaizumi walked out of the shop with a lecture already formulating in his mind for the seal that probably wouldn’t be able to understand him in a million years.

 

Making his way out of the diving shop, he wondered briefly if he might be able to find the damn seal if he made his way by the beach before finding a charter boat to catch a ride on. Figuring it was worth his time to try and lecture the stupid mammal, Iwaizumi changed his course to head to the spot where seals were known to lay all day and the exact same place he had met the blasted seal 10 years ago. He couldn’t stop the tiny smile that found a place on his face as he recalled meeting that foolish seal with the near pure white fur for the first time.

* * *

 

He had been walking along the road with his family on a bright summer afternoon. The heat had been sweltering and his parents insisted they were nearly at the beach and as close as they may have been Iwaizumi was dying to get into the water as soon as possible, and so being the tiny and contravening five year old he was, he had taken off at the first sight of the ocean, which had been past some extremely foreboding sharp rocks and lead into a perfect clearing with soft white sand and trees providing shade and solace from the blistering heat. His parents hadn’t yet noticed their child taking off into dangerous areas as they held hands and walked further down the street. By the time they had rounded the corner of the road Iwaizumi was halfway down the rocky slope leading to the small chunk of paradise below. He was about to reach his hand to another rock when the pointed one under his foot suddenly gave way, dropping him down the rest of the ledge, against all of the pointed rocks on the way down. He gave a yelp as he dropped and reached out to grab something, anything to stop or slow his fall. 

He managed to only brush a loose rock with his finger tips and snag a particularly sharp rock with his knee. He landed roughly in the sand below on his back, all of the wind knocked out of his lungs. He wanted to cry, everything was hurting intensely but he repeated something his father had told him a couple of days ago.  _ Men don’t cry, they must be strong.  _ He kept repeating it in his head as he tried to sit up, wincing as he did so. Slowly regaining his breath he decided that going for a swim was not worth this pain. He was about to get back up when something pushed him back down. 

At first, Iwaizumi thought it was his body refusing to move because of the pain but then something heavy was on top of him, refusing to let him move. A cold and damp nose kept nudging his cheek and irritatingly cute black eyes kept blinking down at him, almost inquisitive as if this creature was wondering if he was alive. Iwaizumi shoved off the creature out of instinct and the creature in this instance mewled in surprise as the maybe dead thing it was observing turned into a hostile unknown thing. Iwaizumi took the opportunity of the creature being shoved to observe it; it was, now that he could see, definitely a seal, it was fluffy and snow white and from further away, the previously way too close black eyes were more visible. They were  _ huge _ and as noted before, annoyingly adorable. The seal also had two tiny darker patches of fur just above it’s eyes that seemed to resemble eyebrows. Iwaizumi sat up, ignoring the aching in his chest and the sharp pain in his knee, before the seal could recover to jump on top of him a second time. “What are you doing here??” He tried to sound casual but had also just fallen a solid 5 feet down sharp rocks and was attempting to talk to  _ a seal _ . The seal let out the same high pitched bark as before and give a couple of nods with it’s head, as if to communicate something as to why it was there.  Iwaizumi looks at the seal skeptically. 

“I don't speak seal?” His statement rises into a question and he looks, rather confusedly, at the strange puff of fur on front of him. “But maybe I can learn?” The seal seems to chuff out a seal-laugh, or well, Iwaizumi thinks it does. Then it noses at his bleeding knee,  bringing Iwaizumi’s attention to it for the first time . It makes some sort of concerned whining noise, at least, it sounds concerned. Can a seal be concerned about some random human? Iwaizumi likes to think it might be possible. What did he know?  The only time he had ever learnt about seals was when his mother told him a fun fact about seals while walking on the beaches of Bentenjima.  _ “Y’know Musuko,” she said, ruffling his already far too mussed up hair “Seals don’t come to shore or our beaches often so if you see one, it’s surely a symbol of good luck.” _

He gently reaches out and pats the seal’s head. “I'm okay, it's just a scratch.”  The seal didn’t look convinced with its two dark patches of fur above its eyes, that Iwaizumi had decided to label as its eyebrows, furrowed deeply above its glittering black eyes. However, as unconvinced as the seal may have been, it seemed as though it couldn’t stay focused on one thing very long because in the next moment the fluffball of a seal was on top of his legs (he noted with slight hiss of pain) and rubbing his fluffy light head against Iwaizumi’s shirt as if begging to be petted more. 

“You’re kind of an attention hog aren’t you?” He chuckled slightly once the pain in his knee had adjusted to the new weight and he began to pet the seal. The seal in question huffed indignantly and rubbed harder, only causing Iwaizumi to chuckle harder. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he said unapologetically “Attention  _ seal _ . What should I name an annoying seal like you?” The seal leaned back and put a flipper to its chest in a sign of offense, mocking and human, and then it was off his legs and going back towards the water. Iwaizumi panicked, was he already going to lose his new seal friend? They didn’t come to land often, what if he’d never see the fluffy marshmallow again? 

“Wait!” he called out, trying to get up and being stopped by the dull pain in his knee, the seal didn’t stop. Resigned, he hung his head and brought his knees up to his chest, and watched the seal retreat into the water, flopping its way to the wet sand. And then it stopped. Iwaizumi lifted his head a little to watch the seal. It was moving its flippers into the semi wet sand in an odd pattern.  _ What on earth? _ Iwaizumi thought as the seal continued. He managed to get up after wiping away the blood on his knee as best he could and once as clean as could be, he slowly limped towards the seal, partially because of the knee and partially because he didn’t want to scare off the seal before one last pet of that fluffy pure white fur. However, when Iwaizumi finally got to the seal it had stopped moving its flipper around in the wet sand. He read it carefully, trying to remember, and carefully read out the kanji written in the sand. 

“Tooru…?” the seal _ (Tooru?) _ bobbed its _ (his?) _ head up and down as if to agree with the name. “And you’re a boy…?” Iwaizumi questioned once more, cautiously as if unsure. Tooru looked offended with a brisk nod of his head. Iwaizumi considered asking Tooru how he could understand him. C _ ould all seals do that? That must be the case  _  he thought but just to be sure, he opened his mouth to ask and before he could even get a word out, Tooru was gone and all Iwaizumi saw of him was ripples in the water.He remembered thinking that he’d never see Tooru again. That was not the case when a couple of days after the encounter Iwaizumi had gone to the harbor seal observation area with frantic parents, who insisted on keeping him close this time. He had been woefully looking at the adorable little harbor seal pups reminded of Tooru when he noticed a peculiar looking seal following him from the other side of the glass.  _ Why doesn’t that one have spots like the others? Is it following me??  _ He thought. And sure enough the little seal followed him on the other side of the glass. He leaned down to get a better look at the pup. “Tooru??” he whispered into the glass, and the pup on the other side nodded. He remembered being filled with joy and running over to his parents to show them the prettiest pup of them all.

* * *

Of course, that had been before Iwaizumi had learnt of Tooru’s awful personality and he wondered  _ How the fuck can a seal even have an awful personality??  _ The thoughts vanished as Iwaizumi finally spotted the same rocks he had fallen down 10 years ago, though by now the rocks had almost become as familiar as the back of his hand. He scaled down them easily and looked around the clearing. It was not the perfect piece of paradise it had once been; now littered with garbage he was sure kids threw down here while riding their bikes past. He picked it up huffily, shoving the soda cans and wrappers into his pockets when he heard an all too familiar bark from behind him. He shoved the last of the litter in his pockets and turned,  and sure enough Tooru was standing there, looking more handsome and sleek with his black and white striped coloration than the floofy white puffball Iwaizumi had previously been remembering in his memory. “You’re not really cute anymore,”  _ just handsome, but a seal with an ego the size of Antartica doesn’t need to know that.  _ “You know that right?” he questioned flatly, though he couldn’t say he wasn’t happy to see Tooru here. Tooru merely waved a flipper to dismiss the comment with a facial expression Iwaizumi had deemed to be a smirk. “Well if you already know that  _ why do you keep photo bombing me?! _ ” The attempt at keeping his voice calm had failed. “I can’t have all of my pictures be of your striped ass!” he was fuming now. Tooru put a flipper to his head and flopped over onto his back, closing his eyes dramatically pretending to die. Iwaizumi shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose as he thought the Tooru either had to be the smartest seal he’d ever met or the most infuriating; probably both. It seemed as though Tooru wouldn’t listen to him the usual way so he’d have to use… other methods.

“Okay, how about this, shitty seal:”

Tooru opened his eyes and leaned his head forward so he could see Iwaizumi better.

“You stay out of my pictures…”

The seal huffed.

“And I’ll bring you more of that sweet human shit you insist on eating. The milk bread?”

Tooru immediately flipped back over and sat up, practically glowing as he bobbed his head vigorously.

“ _ All  _ of the photos, okay?” Iwaizumi stressed the all, he didn’t want 9/10 photos being perfect only to have the last one ruined. Tooru hesitated, contemplating the deal before nodding once more.  Iwaizumi just about sighs in relief, he'd be able to finally get some good pictures. He's just have to buy some milk bread. He'd never been able to figure out the seal’s obsession with it, or how he'd even really learned of it in the first place. It had just been a normal day, but Tooru had all but assaulted a child eating some while walking along the beach’s edge. It had been...something. Something being a seal frantically flopping towards a kid, who promptly moved away from the struggling animal. Iwaizumi has no idea what possessed him that day, for a seal, even attempting to move quickly, is not going to be able to catch up to a species evolved for the land. The boy had taken pity on him though, sharing a small amount of his treat.  Iwaizumi guffawed at the memory, earning a questioning glance from Tooru. Ignoring the glance, he walks over to the seal and makes eye contact with a scowl. “Well, now that this is dealt with,” he pauses, breaking away from the seal’s gaze. and gives Tooru a quick pat on the head. 

“Stay out of trouble? Okay?” He looks back with a smirk of sorts “I’ve already picked up enough garbage off of this beach.” And with that, Iwaizumi took off in the direction of the rocks.


	2. Iwaizumi Birthday Extra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tooru sees that Iwaizumi's sulking over something, and proceeds to throw him the best party a seal can.

The seal manages to snicker menacingly, confronting the shopkeeper. It was going to be a battle of patience, and both of them knew it. Tooru gives the man a grumpy look, as he flops closer to the man defending the basket of pastries, determined. The shopkeeper  _ knows _ he has an advantage, and smirks slightly as the seal grumbles. He rolls quickly, quickly launching himself into a slide, hoping that it wouldn’t do more than ruffle his fur. He slides very well across the slick tile, a bit too well he realizes, just as his head slams into the counter, dazing him. 

The shopkeeper grabs for a tablecloth, uncaring of the avalanche of packed products, a he throws it onto the invasive seal. Tooru huffs indignantly, using his flippers to push himself back from the counter, blinded by the pristine cloth. He tosses his head, to no effect. He knows that if he resorts to thrashing, he’ll be trapped in the white fabric. Tooru ignores the cloth, and launches himself towards where he’s pretty sure the counter with the verifiable hoard of bread was. He feels his stomach contact with the counter, hears the shopkeeper’s incredulous yell and the seal finds himself thrown into a spin, the sound of packages making contact with the floor almost continuous until he manages to come to a stop. The shopkeeper snatches at the cloth constricting him, attempting to remove the wild animal from his counter, only to free the seal instead. Tooru yip cheerfully, snatching a pack of milk bread from the counter before sending himself sailing through the air, gliding across tile, and rolling out the door onto the hard concrete of sidewalk. The man from the shop runs after him, yelling at the thief. Passerbys point at the fleeing animal, and heads are poked out from shops along the street. The shopkeeper seems out of shape, huffing and slowing to a stop as the seal makes a getaway, flopping down the sidewalk as fast as sealy possible. Tooru comes to a stop, dropping his prize to bark triumphantly at the man, before picking up the milk bread and continuing back to the closest beach. He had already procured all but one ingredient to make this the absolute best day ever. But, not for himself, no. 

Tooru had vowed to make this the best day for Iwa-chan, it being his birthday and all, he wanted to do something nice and nowadays Iwaizumi was looking down when he would come visit Tooru at their little beach cove. For about the past week Tooru had been trying to bug Iwaizumi at his job more than usual, in an attempt to get him riled up, angry perhaps? But no, no matter how many of Iwaizumi’s pictures were littered with ribbon seals the only sort of reaction he would get was either a deep sigh or a light smack on the head, it was very unlike Iwa-chan to not seek much more revenge when truly angry. Let alone not getting angry at all. He was on his worst seal behavior and still nothing. 

Tooru had become so fed up with it at to the point where he had tried to stalk Iwaizumi into the heart of Wakkanai with his best disguise consisting of a sweater Iwa-chan had left on their beach one time which Tooru somehow put over his hind flippers and a pair of glasses that Tooru could only assume had been dropped off of the road above his beach or by some biker who got into an accident on the rails of the road leading to the rocks just behind the small beach. It was a flawless disguise to Tooru, but apparently not to the people in Wakkanai shrieking about a loose seal. Regardless, in the end Torou never managed to found out the source of Iwaizumi’s despair and so the only way Tooru could think of to cheer him up was to throw the biggest, greatest party for his Iwa-chan ever. 

He triumphantly drops the now slime-covered package of crushed milk bread, flopping towards where he had previously stashed the stolen pack of candles, laying haphazardly among a giant pile of other stolen items needed to make this party amazing. He rips the flimsy plastic cover off the cardboard, scattering the items across the sand. He carefully positions himself next the the closest one, gingerly picking it up in his mouth, delivering it next to the bread. He then proceeds to throw himself on the packaging, ripping the plastic apart, and guiding it to where the packaging from the candles lay. Iwa-chan would help him pick up and throw the trash away later. Right now though, he was making a valiant attempt at placing the single candle in the bread, managing to only slobber on it a little. As he flops back to admire his handiwork, he notes with great satisfaction that it only was slightly sand dusted, and that, yes, there was holes across the bread’s surface from his attempt at placing the candle, but he did manage in the end. Sure it was crooked, nearly defying gravity at it’s angle, but it’s there.

* * *

 

Iwaizumi sighs, kicking a pebble across the street as he strolls along, heading to the cove where Tooru always waited for him. He’s been feeling rather depressed, his entire family in addition to all his friends, with the exception of that seal, had been very obviously avoiding him for almost a week and a half. Typically he wouldn’t think anything of it, but at this point it was getting ridiculous. He had found himself sulking on the beach frequently, and Tooru had started interfering with both his daily life and photography to an absolutely ridiculous degree. Somehow the stupid animal had even managed to dress himself in a sweater to follow Iwaizumi around town. How he had done it remained a mystery, he was so badly tangled it took Iwaizumi almost half an hour to reclaim his sweater. Honestly, he still didn’t know why he is so fond of Tooru. Sure, he did attempt to do something nice every once in awhile, but more often than not he caused more trouble than he was worth. The seal seemed to be a hyper-intelligent example of his species, and put his brain to work on some of the strangest things. It was obvious that the stalker seal scheme was an attempt to find out what had been bugging Iwaizumi. He would’ve said something with all the time he’d been spending at the beach, but wasn’t sure what telling the crazy seal would accomplish. The night of his birthday had finally come, and everyone around him was still awkwardly dodging questions and leaving rooms just as he entered them. It was exhausting keeping up the effort of trying to figure out what was up, and he didn’t have the energy for it any more. 

With an empty feeling in his heart, he had decided to take a detour to their little cove, and spend part of his afternoon, and potentially evening, with the only friend still coming to him; a seal. It was turning pretty dark by the time Iwaizumi carefully made his way down the rocky face off of the road leading to the beach, where he could already make out the silhouette of a ribbon seal moving around in the sand. Jumping off of the steep hill, his feet firmly connect with the sand. He peers around at his surroundings to see what the seal has done this time. His jaw drops as he sees what Tooru has done, although he's not certain if it was intentional, or not. 

On a rock, obviously placed there with great care, laid what Iwaizumi could only assume was milk bread at one point, almost obliterated now and coated with a thick layer of seal slobber, with a candle sticking out of it at an extremely dangerous angle. Fortunately the seal hadn’t managed to set the candle on fire, though Iwaizumi doubted a milk bread covered with that much liquid like substance would even light on fire. Although that's not what had Iwaizumi the most concerned, what had concerned was the giant pile of items sloppily placed near the water, he doubted any of those were procured legally. How would a seal buy things anyway? There’s not exactly options for Tooru when it came to this. Wandering closer to the pile to inspect it, he noticed most of the items were things Iwaizumi would buy in grocery stores or just things he liked in general. Nothing that he hadn’t brung to the beach with him, and the food items he had shared with the seal. Honestly, at this point he was past surprised, he was almost impressed that the seal had a memory that wasn't the size of a teaspoon. He could almost believe that Tooru’s goal had been pleasant surprise, not the shocked and angered surprise Iwaizumi was experiencing and usually subjected to. Yes, it was...somewhat flattering. If one could be flattered by a wild animal stealing presents for them.

And yet somewhere in the back of his mind Iwaizumi knew that somewhere down the road he'd probably have to seek out the poor stores Tooru had terrorized and probably pay them back. At this point nearly everyone in Wakkanai associated Tooru to Hajime and would usually hold him accountable if a seal went around flopping into their stores or people's faces. Grimacing at the sheer amount of “presents” Tooru collected, he turned to the culprit to chew Tooru out. And yet the moment they made eye contact, Tooru looked so proud and happy that only a truly cruel person who kicked puppies in their free time would be able to scold him. Hajime sits down with a heavy sigh, watching with mild amusement as the seal flops his way up the beach. Even after all this time, it was still quite entertaining to see. He lightly taps the seal between the eyes with a mock scowl.

“I thought I had taught you better. You realize I’m going to have to pay for this?”

The seal didn't look phased at all, almost like he knew the scowl decorating Hajime’s face was only half-hearted. Tooru did his flop over to Hajime and nuzzled his leg affectionately, and out of spite of everything, Hajime petted him with just as much affection.

* * *

 

The mumbling of people crouched in awkward hiding places throughout the dark house had been steadily growing for almost an hour and a half now. The almost-partygoers had been waiting since the typical time Hajime got home, and that time was long passed, nearly five hours so. One of Iwaizumi’s friends had given up already, and had long cut a piece out of the birthday cake, and someone’s little sibling had gotten bored to start stealthily picking at the wrapping of a present.  And yet no one had dared to flick on the lights yet, still crouched down and still in high hopes that Iwaizumi will return at some point. Even on days that he spent time with Tooru, he didn’t typically stay out this late without other plans, and seeing as how all of his friends were present, while hopes were up, worry was beginning to rear it’s ugly head. Especially his family, now concerned that their son had gotten lost or worse on a dive trip and yet, his dive instructor was also there, and reassured them that no more dives were going out today. It was almost 11 PM, the usual time of Hajime returning being 5PM, the lights were on and people were either leaving or saying their goodbyes and eating some party food. Some people refused to believe he could stay out all night and had set up little stations on couches surrounded by pillows and food to keep them company. And there were two of Hajime’s friends; Hanamaki and Matsukawa who had created a blanket and pillow tower and were currently solidly passed out on top of each other by the base. And then someone half-shouted in surprise, and the front door opened, revealing a tired yet content looking Iwaizumi with arms full of seemingly random goods.

“Hey do you guys mind helping return all this stuff Tooru stole?”

There was a brief moment of shocked silence before a few people nodded dumbfoundedly while others rushed forward, grabbing their own presents and wishing Iwaizumi a happy birthday. And looking back on the day Hajime would definitely concede that was one of the best birthdays he's had; spending it swimming and playing around with one of his best friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aAAAAAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH TO THOSE WHO HAVE SUBBED, BOOKMARKED, LEFT COMMENTS AND KUDOS AND TO EVERYONE WHOS READ THIS WE'RE BOTH SHOCKED PEOPLE ARE LIKING THIS SO MUCH HOLY CRAP OKAY
> 
> Since today's Iwa's birthday we decided last minute late last night the content of an extra we wanted to write for the wonderful prickly boy! I hope you found it enjoyable, and wish you a wonderful day!  
> -Tasiec
> 
> So uh,,, heh we had to fix this a little bit, hopefully you guys don't notice too much of a difference but we may have goofed a wee bit during this chapter a lil bit. Our apologies!!  
> -Tsurra


	3. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A rather short chapter that was cut as it is here because it had a rather good place to leave off! I apologize for it's length, but hope that you beautiful readers will enjoy it all the same. Tsurra has asked me to give a shout out to Koichii for their wonderful comments, which was most definitely motivation for finishing chapter four and being able to post chapter two today. We're trying our best to keep a two chapter buffer, to give us enough time to go back through and proof read and edit and such.  
> Thank you all so much for reading so far, and for your enthusiasm!  
> -Tasiec

Tooru watches his human friend leave, the action plunging him into the pool of loneliness that Iwaizumi would always fish him out of. Ribbon seals are solitary creatures, only gathering once a year en masse for the perpetuation of the species. Even mothers and pups didn't stay together long. While Tooru could find other things to do, he didn't like to. Following the photographer around was practically his job at this point. The only downside? It didn't consistently pay well. On occasion though, his stunts would earn him a treat. This time, the treat happens to be his favorite. Perhaps annoying Iwaizumi was worth it this time. Milk bread was always worth it. Gliding through the ocean, Tooru felt free, he moved much more gracefully in the water than he did on land. He was a fish out of water when it came to moving and he really did look like one. He liked being graceful, and water made him graceful thus, he liked water. Passing by a bed of kombu and a school of mackerel pike Tooru glided toward the deeper, more familiar bits of the bay. As he spotted familiar markings; a big rock here, a human grate over there, he wondered about his friend _Was he already diving? I’ll go to where he always dives, I won’t get in any pictures…_ he smirked to himself _I’ll just steal his snorkel!_

It wasn’t a particularly nice day out, it had begun to rain on the surface and the water was stirred up into a murky silt color covering everything, obscuring the water’s visibility. There was a possibility that Iwaizumi wouldn’t come today, but earlier as he had been talking Tooru noticed something akin to determination (alongside the usual annoyance with him) in his voice. He had to be there. Tooru changed his course for Iwaizumi’s usual diving spot when he heard something. What this something was, he had no clue, it wasn’t some large boat or a diver, it would sound more mechanical. He paused from his gliding to listen and look, an uneasy feeling in his chest grew. Whatever that sound was, it was setting off all sorts of alarms in his head, by nature. But for what? He didn’t know. Tooru turned to go in the direction opposing the noise, he heard a boat in the distance. The familiar rumbling brought relief to him, even as the other noise grew closer. He swam forward, but then the unfamiliar noise was in front of him. He turned back. The noise was behind him. He was growing more panicked as he realized with a jolt of dread. There were _two_ noises, on either side of him. He dashed to the side without hesitation, going as fast as his sleek body would allow. He swam until he thought his lungs would give up on maintaining oxygen. Then he saw something, a shimmer of black and white through the murky green blue water.

 _Another seal?_ He thought hopefully, his hopes rising and the uneasy feeling lessening. He slowed as the black and white shimmers vanished into the murk. The sound was right in front of him, as was a giant panda like face with its mouth wide open, revealing pearly white chipped teeth with the intent to devour him. He narrowly avoided the mouth and his heart beat loudly inside his chest, it was all he could hear. _Orcas._ He knew what the noise was but he hadn’t connected it until now, until it was already too late. Tooru could no longer hear the noise of the orcas, only the rhythm of unadulterated terror in his heart, in his blood, in his very soul. However, this was no time to be scared, he needed to move and get out of here. His survival instinct was telling him to swim and escape certain death, he needed a place to hide. He considered diving down to hide in the kombu beds when another flash of black and white showed up below him, the orcas planned to box him in. But he knew something they did not; he was graceful. And he felt confident he could outswim them if he picked the right direction. So far there was one below him, to his right and to his left so his choices were back to shore or… or what? There really wasn’t any other option. Tooru once more took off toward the shore, full speed.

He was certain this would work until he nearly collided into a black and white nose connected to a large white and black body that, sadly, was once more definitely not another ribbon seal. Pivoting in the opposite direction his panic was increasing tenfold, feeling more blocked in than ever. _Where else is there to go?!_ He thought desperately and somehow a deep recess in his brain told him _Iwa-Chan_. Resigning himself to the fact that there was literally nowhere else to go, he continued on his original path, just a bit more hastily than he intended.  As far as he could tell there were four orcas currently hunting him, if not more. Already it was four orcas too many for Tooru.

He could tell they weren’t far behind but every passing second the scenery became more familiar, he was getting closer to the dive location. The noise of the killer whales was getting closer behind him and he was more and more panicked, his heart seeming to beat impossibly fast. His heart stopped when he finally reached the dive site. Iwaizumi was nowhere within sight of his multifocal eyes, or any other divers for that matter. This was shaping up to be, putting it mildly, not good. Not good as in, was about to die, somewhere in the back of his mind was instinct screaming at him to swim but he knew it was useless to do so. What had he hoped Iwaizumi could do anyway? Somehow a man managing to fight off at least four very seal-hungry orcas? Not a chance.

Dimly aware that they were getting closer his only regret was that he hadn't once talked to Iwaizumi, he hadn't been able to tell him… With regret swirling in his mind he noticed something different in the water, not the imminent death behind him, but instead a comfortable and accustomed low rumble. His head snapped up towards the surface and he went dizzy with relief when he spotted the bottom of a boat about 27 feet off. Whether or not it was friendly didn’t really matter at this point. The only thing that mattered was not being in the water. Tooru pushed his flippers back into action towards the boat, all too aware now that the orcas were too close. He wasn't going to make it, and yet, he swam because his life depended on it. He had managed to close about half of the distance when he vaguely feels pain, a feeling removed from himself, in his hind flippers. He can tell he's been caught, obviously not enough, seeing as how, well, he still seemed to be swimming and, not, you know, a corpse. The pain gradually feels closer to his narrowing awareness of his frantic rush to the vessel, making it known that jaws had obviously closed onto his tail. With no time to waste, he manages to launch himself clear off the water, and the killer whales beneath.


	4. Chapter Three

As his front hits the low deck of the boat, Tooru has to desperately scramble, slick flippers not gaining any traction on almost equally slick wood. He hears gasps and mild sounds of alarm as people notice him. Not that a black seal with stark white stripes reaching almost five feet long was easy to miss. Besides, who'd want to? As an endangered and rare species, and a pretty one at that, Tooru knows he's a sight to see. Though now would be a poor time for posing and preening. He glances back out to the water as the ruckus on the ship rises. The tell-tale black shiny fin and back lets him know almost immediately going for a dip would be not only a terrible idea, but most likely deadly. He manages to scramble up into a less precarious position on the boat, hauling himself up more towards the deck and safety away from the sea. Someone gasps and briskly backs away from the animal on board. Like he'd actually hurt anyone. He was jittery and shaky and definitely in no mood to flop-attack someone, but just in case they were either poachers or were about ready to throw him off board, Tooru kept his distance from the humans. He glanced nervously at the water as the fins circled like sharks around the boat, occasionally even jumping and getting much too close for comfort as if they could scare him off the boat. He counted the fins 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… 7… he gulped nervously, there were more than he had originally thought in the water. At this point he would’ve rather faced one big shark than this nasty pod of killer whales. Sighing, Tooru came to the conclusion that he was going to be here a while. He decided that on his short stay on this boat he may as well get acquainted, especially now that his heart finally slowed down to a reasonable beat. Looking at the back of the boat, he noticed long, metal, cylindrical tanks all stacked neatly in a row, tied down with some rope. The boat was beaten up, like it had been through many storms but no one had bothered to repair it. It was your typical messy, metal charter boat for…what? He looked back to the tanks...diving? Yes, this had to be a diving boat. There were flippers and snorkels strewn about as well as a pile of wet suits mixed with dry suits. He turned to observe the humans on board, namely the one that had backed away so suddenly. She had blonde curly hair and wide blue eyes that were obviously scared, or surprised. She was in a wet suit and a coat thrown over like she was in the process of getting ready for a dive. So much for that plan. She looked extremely familiar to Tooru and he squinted at her, trying to remember where he’d seen her before. He was so caught up in attempting to place the woman and so frazzled from the near death experience he didn’t notice another human sneaking up behind him. By the time he had noticed, they had already pinned down his tail, as to prevent Tooru from flopping away. He let out a bark of surprise and tried to wiggle away, the only things stopping him was the pain shooting from the tip of his tail and the strong hands pinning him in place.  
“You idiot!” the words were seethed with absolute anger and concern. Tooru twisted his body in a way that he could see the human, having a fluttering feeling of hope he already knew who it was. Lo and behold, Iwaizumi was behind him, kneeling down on the boat’s deck, keeping him in place with one hand and lifting the other to lightly brush it along Tooru’s painful flippers. Tooru hadn’t noticed the copious amount of blood pouring from the appendage; Iwaizumi had. “Can’t you just once listen to me?” he muttered with a pleading tone in his voice. “I said stay out of trouble, not go and attract an entire fucking pod of orcas for dinner.”  
Tooru wanted to laugh, Iwaizumi was so huffy and upset but it was only out of concern. To reassure his human friend he turned as much as the hands on his tail would allow and put his head on Iwaizumi’s shoulder, snorting lightly in an attempt to convince him that he was alright, aside from the gushing wound on his appendages, that is.  
“You’re disgusting.” Iwaizumi responded bluntly. Tooru let another, huffier, snort into his ear. Apparently deciding that Tooru was not going to stupidly jump back into the water with a wounded tail, Iwaizumi took his hands off of Tooru and stood, heading towards the middle of the boat. He turned to the other human, the blonde lady, on deck.  
“Yuri-san can you make sure that stupid seal doesn’t jump back in while I talk to the captain down in the cabin? I think he’ll want to know we have a new passenger.” She looked hesitantly at Tooru, very much untrusting of the seal. Tooru lifted his front flipper to his eye and winked at her. Yuri looked slightly startled but looked back to Iwaizumi and nodded. “Y-yeah…” she said unconfidently, still eyeing Tooru suspiciously as Iwaizumi disappeared into the cabin. Yuri and Tooru stared at each other, sizing the other up. Breaking her gaze, Tooru turns back towards the water, the killer whales still swarming. He anxiously edged back away from the sea, glancing up at this Yuri. He tried to give her his puppy eyes. The ‘oh god don't let them eat me’ ones. She seems to flinch away. Well, the cute was probably lost with his blood. Speaking of blood loss, he was starting to feel woozy. He should probably figure out how to stem the bleeding soon. Although, he's not sure how to go about doing that. He distantly noted that, yes, his hind flippers still hurt. He looked over to Yuri, she was rocking from side to side, shifting her balance rapidly from one foot to the other and somehow he felt it wasn’t the rocking of the boat causing this to occur. She wouldn’t be able to help him, she looked like she was about ready to jump ship just to get away from this “wild creature” now staring at her, however she seemed to be intelligent enough to realize a seal was much less dangerous than an entire pod of orcas. It was shame she wasn’t going to help him with the blood leaving him at an alarming rate, he really wasn’t feeling too hot. The world around him had started to sparkle with blue, yellowish black dots dancing around him and his head felt light as a feather. He imagined his head was a seal balloon drifting off from some kid at a fair, the kid was crying. Nearly half the world was covered by black dots and Tooru couldn’t really decipher his thoughts clearly anymore. Was Yuri moving forward to help him? That was awfully kind of her, maybe he should lie down; closing his eyes sounded really nice right now. ¾ of his vision was obscured now and the remaining quarter was extremely fuzzy, Yuri’s hands are really rough, the one clear thought he could make out. He faintly heard concerned yelling and the roar of a motor. Someone was yelling at him now, if only he could understand. Which way was up? Was he falling? No, he was being picked up. Yuri really was a sweet girl, maybe a little rough and buff but, nice. His vision was slowly clearing and he was aware of a pressure on his tail that wasn’t there before, it wasn’t enough to the point of pain but it did cause him the wriggle in a half hearted attempt to free himself from the pressure. He made out the words “stupid” “don’t” “asleep” from above him. Tooru took it back, Yuri sounded mean. And on second thought, she also sounded a lot like not Yuri.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another shorter one, but people seemed rather concerned about our little seal here. We're getting more towards some of the plot, and yes, don't despair, the small ones will be safe in the end.


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The seal boy has an ouch and is...forgetful about human-things.

Tooru awoke to a bright, white and claustrophobic inducing room, his head was spinning and he couldn’t quite tell which way was up or down, like he was still swimming. He moved his flipper to test if he was still swimming, but judging by the way there was no resistance against his limb, he was not in any sort of water.  He was more than just disoriented, he was struggling to keep his eyes open. His hind flippers were numbed, he tried to move them but couldn't feel if he was successful. He tries to roll over, to look up and around if he wasn't going to be mobile. His vision swirls and black slowly seeps into it, before receding a couple of seconds later. 

Tooru  finally settles into a realm of somewhat conscious and takes in his surroundings. The stark white walls accentuated the cold steel counters and tools set upon them, bright white-blue lights shone from directly above Tooru in a blinding manner, there were jars full of strange liquids and plastic boxes that were too far away for Tooru to read. After wiggling a bit more Tooru discovered he was on top of a flat metal bed, though bed would have been too kind of a description for the reflective and freezing metal pan he was sitting on. It wasn’t exactly the most ideal resting place but honestly he was in too much numbed out pain to really care… however, are those needles? 

Suddenly, the stark white walls were about ten times more claustrophobic than before; Tooru needed to escape. He inched his way to the edge of the metal bed and looked back, noticing that there was a remarkable trail of blood being left by an even more noteworthy gash in his left hind flipper which he decided wouldn’t be of any use to help him escape. 

Although it would be rather difficult to escape, even with all flippers intact. However, it isn't like he's any old seal. Even his Iwa-chan would have to admit that he was a stunning example of his kind, both in intelligence and beauty. Although it might be easier to let his flipper be fixed before he attempted his spectacular escape, the most daring any would ever witness,  but no, he didn’t have time; those needles looked extra sharp and he didn’t want any bit of him near those anytime soon. And so with a mighty heave he flung himself forcefully off of the metal bed and into the air. 

For a moment time seemed to stop as he flew through the air towards the door, he felt graceful like a beautiful ballerina making their final leap towards fame and glory, or in his case, to freedom. 

The moment ended just as quickly as it had begun and Tooru hit the floor heavily which would’ve been painful if adrenaline hadn’t been pumping through his blood, pushing him towards away from the room.

He had to get out, Tooru didn’t feel like acquainting himself with any sharp surgical tools anytime soon. With triumph, he flopped the rest of the way to the door and with a sudden sense of dread realized the problem in his situation; he had no hands to open the door with and the door was not conveniently opened.  _ What? Can’t leave a wild animal alone with the door open? Rude. _ he thought to himself. 

His dread slowly turned into pain as his adrenaline ran out and he was starting to realize what a bad situation he had put himself into. He pressed his head to the door to try and listen if anyone was coming or if he had time to try and escape, after a brief second he heard a door being slammed open and a jingle that would usually occur when someone walked into a store with a chime, he jumped away in surprise before he realized that the door was not his. He continued to listen and heard angry yelling, voices were raised and at one point sounded like someone was either pounding a counter or a face, it was hard to tell from this far away. 

While Tooru had no idea what all of that yelling was about, he  _ did  _ know that no one would be paying attention to his room for as long as they were arguing, he had to act fast. He looked around the floor to see if there was anything to help him, but all he saw was a giant pool of seal blood ebbing from him and a chair for someone to sit in. Hope was swiftly escaping Tooru and trepidation replaced any room hope could hope to take. Tooru knew what he had to do, but he didn’t want to think about what could happen if he messed up. 

Slowly, he took off his seal skin and regained his human form, it had been about ten years since he’d last been in this form and that one time had been an accident, Tooru was in no shape to pretend to be human. Slouched on the floor he observed how the damage to his fins would affect his legs; there was a nasty gash cut into his left leg, although in his human form it was much less noticeable. Using the door handle as support, Tooru tried to stand on overly unused and shaky legs, begging to whatever God there was that looked over seals and selkies to help him out. 

Eventually he managed to somewhat support himself on a single leg which was rather impressive if he had to say; working with an injured leg out of a pair of legs that have had no use was going pretty well. He leaned heavily against the wall and looked around for something that could help him, though this time, as a human. 

He grabbed the chair he had seen earlier and used it as a crutch to get to the counter where he had found a roll of bandage looking material. Tooru winced as he carefully wrapped it around his left leg. After having deemed it wrapped enough he wasn’t exactly sure how to tie it off or cut it so he left the roll attached to his leg as he returned to his chair crutch and continued his pursuit of freedom. Tooru decided, as he looked around once more, he liked this newfound height that being in his ribbon seal form could not provide. 

Offhandedly he wondered if he’d be taller than Iwa-Chan… probably, but now wasn’t the time for such thoughts. Sliding his chair towards the door he felt as though he were forgetting something, perhaps... something humans did? Maybe it was how the argument had died down outside, but no that didn’t seem right, he couldn’t hear any loud footsteps so he was fine there. 

Tooru reached for the door, but was interrupted by the door being flung open, nearly knocking his chair crutch out of place. In front of him now stood a very small Yuri, her blonde curls carefully bordering an extremely shocked expression. 

She looked a bit like a gaping goldfish as she looked Tooru up and down, holding the seal skin before Tooru finally remembered that one thing about humans; they wear clothing, which he was very much not doing at the current moment. And then Yuri let out the most earsplitting shriek Tooru had ever heard a human create. The inhuman shriek was immediately followed by an extremely painful smack to the cheek and the words “THERE’S A PERVERT!” 

 

\----------

To say that Hajime Iwaizumi was pissed would be an understatement. Whether he was more pissed at Tooru, the vet or himself, he wasn’t quite sure. The stupid seal had gotten into trouble almost the second he left and now here he was at the Wakkanai only animal clinic yelling at the veterinarian to let him see Tooru, which he was trying to convince the woman at the front desk, is smarter than your everyday wildlife and that Iwaizumi needed to see him this instant. The lady at the front desk wasn’t having any of it, Iwaizumi raised his voice, and so did the lady until they were having an all out yelling match about Tooru. 

“I KNOW THE SEAL JUST LET ME SEE HIM! PLEASE!” He had given up on trying to keep his cool, the women was infuriating far more than Tooru could ever hope to. 

“SIR YOU CANNOT APPROACH THE WILD ANIMAL IT GOES AGAINST ALL OUR SAFETY PRECAUTIONs!” 

He huffs haughtily “He’s my friend!!” The woman regarded Iwaizumi like a madman, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Yuri sneaking down the hallway where they believed Tooru to be, he couldn’t be more grateful in that moment. Iwaizumi continued to argue with the woman, hoping to buy Yuri time to go and find Tooru, at least so they could find out if Tooru was alive or… no, Iwaizumi refused to think like that; the seal had lost a lot of blood but not enough to bleed out… right? A scream interrupted both his thoughts and his argument with the bitch running the front desk. It sounded concerningly a lot like Yuri, and his suspicions were confirmed when he heard her yell “PERVERT!” both the lady and he, dropped their argument in a heartbeat and ran towards the scream, they rounded the corner and found Yuri sitting in a pool of blood inside the frame of a doorway leading to a room covered in yet more blood. 

“Oh gods…” the lady said, covering her mouth as if it would somehow protect her from the blood. Iwaizumi rushed forward, offering Yuri a hand. 

“Are you alright?? Is this your blood?? Did you find Tooru? Is this…” his stomach churned as he forced himself to finish the sentence “his blood?” Yuri looked dumbfounded as she accepted his hand up. 

“T-there was a naked man in here, he pushed me aside and dashed towards the back of the clinic, he was bleeding pretty badly but it wasn’t Tooru and this isn’t mine or Tooru’s blood… I don’t think… “ Iwaizumi was relieved but Yuri wasn’t done talking quite yet. She tugged on his sleeve with a scared look in her eyes “Iwaizumi-San… I think that man was holding a-a…” she looked away as she attempted to spit out the words “the skin of a seal…” those were the only words Iwaizumi needed to hear to start racing towards the back of the clinic, following the trickle of blood the naked man seemed to be leaving behind. Iwaizumi would hunt down and find the pervert that was so sick and so twisted that he would hunt down ribbon seals while naked during his free time. Perverts and poachers could go to hell for all Hajime cared.

\------

It only took Tooru five minutes in the open air to remember why he didn’t like staying in his human form. It was bitter and cold and night was rapidly arriving on the scene, making it difficult to see where Tooru was going. Behind the animal clinic had been a wide field of rubble and tall grass sloping downwards, he was halfway through the field when he started to shiver like a vibrator and realized he had no idea where he was going. He could only hope that at the end of this field lay the ocean, which he seriously doubted. The tall grass wasn’t exactly the softest substance on earth and with each passing step Tooru could feel rocks and pieces of whatever building used to be here burrow its way into his feet. Tooru still had his seal skin and attempted to wrap it around himself as a bit of warmth which helped a little bit, but it wasn’t enough to stop the cold that came with the night or the pain of an inch deep gash still oozing blood as he ran, though at this point it was more of a fast limp than anything. Tooru was about to curl up in the grass amongst the rocks and rubble and give up when he saw small dots of bright light appearing at the end of the field. He quickened his pace towards the light and prayed that it was some sort of town or at the very least, something with softer walking grounds than spiky grass and rubble. After about two minutes he finally found out that the lights were only a portion of a bigger town centre which Tooru somewhat recognized as Wakkanai, the town which he would terrorize for milk bread, and Iwa-Chan’s homeplace. At this point his bandage was all but gone and the blood had slowed to a trickle but the pain hadn’t dulled one bit. 

In relief, Tooru dropped his seal skin and rushed forward to the nearest clothing store, desperate to not be called a pervert again. He was dimly aware of people screaming as a bloody naked man walked into the store, but didn’t really pay attention until he felt a tapping on his arm. 

“Um hey, so like, I don’t really mean to be a downer but uh, the sign out front says no shirt no shoes no service, and you have, like, none of those. So uh, sorry dude, but you have to leave.” Tooru looked at the teenager addressing him, his name tag read John Tanaka and Tooru flashed, what he hoped was his most brilliant smile, although he was aware he was flashing a lot more than just his smile. 

Tooru attempted to speak, only to find a garbled mess come out, he cleared his throat and tried again saying “Well Tanaka-Chan, do you think you could help me out? I’ll leave as soon as you do.” John visibly hesitated, looking unsure if he wanted his job more than the screaming and staring of other customers to stop. He made his decision as he led Tooru to the back room and collected some clothing for Tooru to wear. 

“Thank you~!” he said as he gingerly put on the clothes around his wounds, trying to clean up a bit of the blood. After throwing on a black hoodie with a white flower pattern on, a pair of loose jeans and some sandals, John declared Tooru good enough to get out of his store and sent him on his merry way. Tooru felt about ten times better now that his poor human feet had some protection and he wasn’t exposed to the chilly night air as much as before. In a chipper attitude, Tooru went to collect his sealskin, from where he had dropped it earlier. Only, as he arrived on the scene, there was no seal skin to be found. Tooru’s heart skipped several beats as he stood frozen in fear, trying to recall the exact details of what would happen to him if he lost his sealskin.

 

_ He was nearly five when his mother and father sat him down and decided to give him the selkie talk, well, mostly his mother. His father looked incredibly uncomfortable as his mother began the lecture. “So remember Tooru, if you lose your sealskin, there’s nothing anyone can do to save you. That sealskin is just as much a part of you off as it is on you. If it is harmed, then you are harmed and the other way around as well, but if a human gets their hands on it, then you have no choice but to be their slave for life.” His mother had taken on an ominous tone that he didn’t appreciate one bit, and so he replied in the only way he knew how to when upset; with sass. “Is that what happened with you and dad?” He earned a bark of laughter from his father and a glare from his mother. That night he only ate a bit of bread his father snuck him. _

 

A heavy lump was forming in his throat and all he could taste in his mouth was bile as dread once more took control of him. The black in the night was closing in on him as the gravity of the situation hit him harder than an orca. He could only stick to his original plan as the night continued to close around him; he needed to escape to the beach, his beach, his and Iwa’s beach. In that moment he wished Hajime was there to scold him and call him an idiot, because that was pretty much how he was feeling; like an idiot. Why had he thought leaving his sealskin had been a good idea? No, he hadn’t been thinking at all. Just as he wasn’t now. He briskly made his way across town to the direction where he knew the ocean lay. In a haze of monotones and nearly being run over by much more than one car, Tooru made his way to the road that would go right alongside his beach. Morosely, he climbed down the rocky outface, feeling colder and more numb than when he had woken up from the orca attack, although at this point he couldn’t bring himself to care. His life was over and it was all his fault, his and his own stupidity. Sitting himself down into the sand and leaning up against a rock, he looked out over the water and sand that he had swum in countless times. Grief struck him like a knife to the chest that he’d never be able to swim in those waters so freely ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all that we both say we don't really like angst... writing a multi-chapter fic does seem to be proving us wrong... aha ha  
> I hope this doesn't deter any of you guys though, we really are enjoying how kind you all are to us, even though we're noobs with this whole thing.   
> I do truly hope that you'll keep reading, and enjoying this chapter of our story!  
> -Tasiec


	6. Chapter Five

Hajime slowly makes his way down to the cove, knowing that in all likelihood he wasn’t going to see Tooru again, and if he did, it wasn’t going to be for a while. He could feel that his seal was lost, that he was alive, but couldn’t help but dismiss it as futile hope. The thought of Tooru lying dead and bleeding out somewhere made his heart tighten and brought him to the brink of tears he was last left with the imagery of a naked man walking away with the skin of a seal, which didn’t put his sorrows to rest at all. He clambered down the sharp rocks with ease, having done it countless times before, though never truly appreciating what had been at the bottom waiting all those times before. And now that Tooru was gone, well he’d probably never get to pet the seal again. His feet hit the the soft sandy ground and was shocked to hear a gasp from somewhere behind him, so much that he stumbled backward and landed facing the sky in the cold wet sand.  
“The fuck?” he said aloud, trying to look backwards towards the source of the gasp. His eyes fell on a shadowed figure sitting under one of the trees out of the moonlight and perched atop a rock. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked bitterly, not really in the mood to be around anyone other than his seal, and a heavy feeling in his gut told him he wouldn’t be doing that anytime soon. Besides, this was their beach, and the shithead of a seal had viciously protected the shore.  
There was a slight moment of hesitation, Hajime could see it in the stranger, before the figure replied in a melodically sweet voice “I’m me~!” the tone was enough to set Hajime off. He sat up to turn and voice the person he could now identify as male.  
“No shit. Who are you really?” at his sharp words, Iwaizumi could hear a sharp intake of breath, as if he’d struck a nerve.  
“Do you really not recognize me?” the stranger’s voice was choked with tears now, and his shuddering form made it seem as if he was barely holding back sobs. Surely this man must know him somehow then, or the man in front of him was just extremely cold, he didn’t appear to be wearing much. Hajime squints into the dark, looking for any identifying traits. All he saw was a cloud of light brown hair, unruly yet still appealing, and pale skin along with big brown eyes. Even he can admit the man on his beach is beautiful, though he didn’t recognize him at all.  
“No.”  
“But but but Iwa-chaaaaaaaaaan” the man elongates his words to an absurd degree, suddenly at Hajime’s side as tears slide down his face. Iwaizumi tenses, uncertain of how to react to the stranger clinging to him.  
“Do I know you…?” he asks with increasing levels of uncertainty. The stranger nods ruefully, not elaborating further, and only succeeding in pissing Hajime off more.  
“Well Iwa-Chan, what are you moping about?” he asked, catching Hajime off guard. Regarding the stranger with a strange look he asked  
“And what makes you think I’m moping idiot?” and pushed the stranger off of him, looking away to make sure the surprise mixed with pain on his face wasn’t visible. The stranger tsked and sat himself back onto the shaded rock.  
“It’s not nice to call people idiot, that’d be a bit hypocritical of you Iwa-Chan.” There was something arrogant and annoyingly familiar in his tone that caused Hajime to turn around and glare at the stranger.  
“Excuse-” he started angrily, only to be interrupted by the man again.  
“And I know you’re sad because you usually come down here if you’re bored or need cheering up, and I’m assuming you didn’t climb down here because you were bored at one AM.” and with each word the stranger spoke Hajime grew increasingly untrusting and more like he should know this person.  
“Seriously how the fuck do you know me?” he asked incredulously as if this was actually a dream rather than reality.  
“You didn’t answer the question Iwa-Chan~” the stranger replied easily and sickeningly sweetly. Giving up, and in no mood to put up a fight, he let it all spill out; how first it was the orcas, then the pervert and then the thoughts of his close friend maybe being dead. Not once did the stranger interrupt him, although multiple times as Hajime was talking did he see the stranger shift uncomfortably and open his mouth as if to say something, but in the end, he never did.  
“So yeah, you could say I’m a bit sad.” he finished up his story and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of fresh ocean air, starting slightly when he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see a bittersweet smile on the stranger’s face like he knew something Hajime didn’t, successfully pissing him off yet again.  
“Listen, Iwa-chan, I uh actually have been meaning to tell you this for a while now, but I haven’t actually been able to tell you… And seeing you in pain like this, isn’t what I had intended at all… “ Hajime was starting to consider the possibility that this stranger was his own personal stalker, judging by the way he spoke to him. The possibility continued to grow just as he catches sight of the man’s bare feet poking out of the flipflops. If asked, Hajime would vehemently deny that he was staring at a stranger’s feet, however there was something extremely odd about them; his left one appeared to be covered in a thick red substance, that with an astonishingly quick connotation Hajime made it out as blood. Without much care for the stranger, he grabbed the blood covered foot and pulled it closer to him, to inspect it, earning him a yelp from the whiny stranger that had been pissing him off since he’d met him.  
“W-What are you doing??” the stranger asked him in a quivering tone. But Hajime couldn’t give spare two shits about him as anger built up inside him, connecting the dots.  
“How do you know me? Wait, no, I know. Don’t tell me, you know me because you were the fucker who hurt my seal aren’t you? You also pushed Yuri down you fucking pervert, I’m going to kill you!” and true to his word, he pulled the stranger closer to get his hands around his throat, only for him to wriggle out of his grasp, panicked as he shoves himself backwards.  
“No! I didn’t Iwa-chan, I’m righ-!” Iwaizumi gives no thought to the stranger’s words, lunging for him again, this time pinning him to the sand. “I swear, I didn-”  
“What have you done you fuck?” Hajime was enraged, and now that he had the shit that had hurt his seal in his grasp, he wasn’t going to let him go scot free. But before he could do anything to cause further pain to the bastard he burst out sobbing, surprising Hajime enough to loosen his grasp and allow the struggling stranger yet again  
“Please don’t- No- You can’t do this to me Iwa-Chan!! Please don’t hurt me Hajime!” The pain in the stranger’s voice sounded so real and sincere it made Iwaizumi feel a smidge guilty, especially after crying his name like that.  
“How… Who… “ He contemplated what he should say next carefully. “The fuck?” yes, he would go with the most literate of all options ‘the fuck.’ clearly the sensible choice here. “Nevermind,” he gave a deep sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as he reflected on what he’d almost done and what he still would do if he didn’t put some space between himself and this stranger.  
“I don’t know who you are, or how you know me, but honestly, today’s been too long to care. I’m going to leave now but I swear, if you’re still here tomorrow I will throttle you.” He affixes the man with an icy cold glare before turning away to climb back up the rocky face, feeling even more disheartened than when he clambered down here. He got to the road and sat there, gazing back out over the moonlit waters and listened to the soft crying from down below, before standing up and leaving to go home. He was about halfway down the road to the bend when he heard running footsteps coming closer and a cry of “Iwa-Chan!” from behind him. He was extremely ready to stab this stalker pervert seal killer that he’d already told to fuck off.  
“Please, just listen to me before you try to kill me, I beg of you, I’ll stop being mean! I swear! Just listen!” the man in front of Hajime was practically groveling at this point, but he wasn’t ready to give him the light of day.  
“Why the fuck do you keep bothering me?” They faced each other in the empty moonlit road, the cool air and cold light making the scene even more tense and fragile. “I told you, I never want to see you again.” his voice was almost as cold as the night’s temperature. Everything was still, no wind whisked the trees and only the soft roar of the ocean below filled the silence. The stranger was faintly shaking, his face covered by his fluffy brown hair and shadowed by the moonlight that was lighting everything else.  
“I-I know, and I understand that. But I need to tell you who I am-”  
“And I’ve already said I don’t care, so get lost before I do something regrettable.” he was quickly running out patience in this repeating loop.  
“I know where Tooru is!”  
And with that, Hajime shut up, looking dubiously at the stranger. “Assuming that you plead innocent to having killed Tooru, how do you even know his name?” His patience was replaced by curiosity, drowning out almost every other emotion alongside it. The stranger looked up from his bangs and for a split second Hajime swore he saw Tooru’s eyes for a moment, but the thought disappeared as a cloud blocked out the moonlight. There was silence and eventually the stranger said “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he makes it back safely.” he sounded so very sad, and something about the way he said it made Hajime take a step forward and want to pull him into a safe embrace. He took a step back, but that was absurd.  
“...Thanks.”  
The stranger nodded and then whistled out a quick tune as if to make up for the lack of birds.  
“Hopefully you won’t see me again Iwa-Chan~!” and with that the stranger turned around, leaving Hajime alone with his numerous questions and strange longing for this to not be the last time he saw the stranger. And even though he was sure that the man had committed terrible crimes against him personally, he couldn't help but feel a strange remorse at the stranger’s obvious sobs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now this one  
> This one was fun  
> For everyone who's been rooting for Oiks to man up? Seal up? And tell Iwa... well. He tried. It didn't go well.
> 
> Also:  
> We are considering perhaps making this a series and incorporating Bokuto and Kuroo somewhere along the line. I'm curious to see if anyone's interested at all.
> 
> -Tasiec
> 
> Note: Bo and Kuroo are gonna show up either way; we love our brot3, we're just wondering if ya wanna see even MORE of them in a spin off!   
> -Tsurra


	7. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> whoops that's not good

Since that peculiar day the Iwaizumi had lost his seal to orcas and met a strange and sad man on the beach, he had become especially bitter and people in his personal life were starting to take note. Not only had the bloody stranger kept to his word and didn't show his face, his seal was still gone and all that kept him company while diving was the thought that somewhere out there are orcas probably viciously tearing up other seals rather than him. And yet, just in case, Iwaizumi kept his dive knife on him at all times. 

Today's dive was no different as he firmly secured the knife into place and adjusted the camera on his weight belt. The water visibility wasn't exactly ideal for photo shooting, sitting at a solid 7ft of visibility, but it was better than nothing and any pictures at this point would at least help a little towards rent for the month and hopefully cover food. 

His boss was an understanding man but ever since Tooru had vanished from the clinic, it was like no wildlife existed in the cold waters off of Wakkanai at all. Iwaizumi suspected it had something to do with Tooru being a magnet of sorts; whether it be humans or animals, creatures tended to flock towards him. Iwaizumi grimaced as he realized that included him. 

A light touch on his arm shocked him back into reality where he was still standing in the middle of the boat grimacing. Everyone was trying to avoid him, everyone except Yuri that was, who was now lightly placing a hand on his shoulder. 

“Is everything alright Iwaizumi-San?” she asked delicately with concern, as if to try and not upset him. Too late for that, he thought, he was already upset and there was nothing anyone could do to try and cheer him up. He shrugged off her hand and continued preparing his dive gear. 

“Yes, I'm fine Yuri-san, thank you.” he said in a curt and rough tone. She quickly nodded and rushed away to go work on her own set up for diving. Briefly he wondered who he'd be diving with before deciding it didn't really matter, he'd just go alone. He wasn't in any sort of mood to put up with any human interaction. He only turned away from checking his oxygen tanks with the regulator when Yuri let out a scream and Iwaizumi turned to see a thoroughly soaked Yuri, confusing him greatly; there hadn't been any turbulence or giant waves as far as he had felt, so where had the water come from? 

“Did we hit something starboard, Yuri-San?” he called out to her, trying to grab her attention and figure out what had happened. She shook her heading, pointing to the water excitedly and shouting something, however the wind and waves crashing against the side of the boat drowned out her voice. 

She waved her hand dismissively and turned her attention back to her equipment yet again. He too, gave up and sat down, deciding his equipment was properly working, despite not cleaning his mask or check his tank properly. It wasn't as if though it was the end of the world without them. 

The boat slowed with a roar and a faint wake as they reached their destination. Their destination happened to be a series of coves and underwater caves off of a pile of rock formations, famous for being a home place to many harbor seals of Wakkanai. Right about this time seals were creating families and pups were already roaming everywhere. 

The thought of harbor seal pups made Hajime’s stomach curl painfully at the memory of the small and fluffy Tooru he had once thought was a harbor seal, like all the other pups. How wrong he had been, not only was Tooru not a harbor seal, Tooru was special; Hajime would have to be an idiot to not accept that. Tooru, on more than one occasion, showed himself to be capable of understanding Iwaizumi (and while he pretended not to understand Iwaizumi’s lectures, he knew Tooru was listening) and acted much more intelligently than any average seal would. Not that he’d ever told Tooru that. 

He sighs deeply, double and triple checking that all of his gear is ready to go, just as freezing water suddenly washes over him, thoroughly soaking him and all his equipment. He bends over the railing at the side of the boat, frowning at the water. There was nothing natural about that wave. Against his better judgement, his heart leaps, hope filling him as he determinedly peers into the sea. Tooru was always messing about, and generally decided that Hajime looked better soaked to the bone than warm and dry. 

There, a flash of black and white. His hope grows, and he glances around to see if anyone will notice if he happens to disappear for a bit. No, no one is watching. He knows it dangerous, knows he shouldn't, but if there's  _ any _ chance, he's taking it. Iwazumi takes a deep breath, rips off his weight belt with the knife, fills his lungs, and throws himself overboard,  not even so much as grabbing his snorkel as he jumps. The moment he hits the cold and rough water he immediately regrets it; it is freezing to the point where he almost goes into shock, the wet suit on his body rendered almost obsolete,  _ almost _ . The buoyancy of the wetsuit keeps from sinking instantly under the rough waters.

Belatedly, he realizes what a dumb idea this is as he hears his crewmates still aboard gasping in horror and shock about his stupid actions. What did had he hoped this would accomplish? He’s about to turn around and start swimming back to the boat when he notices that the boat is about a good ten feet away, more than when he had jumped. Were they leaving without him? Unlikely; his stupidity wouldn’t be enough for his dive team to straight up ditch him. So why were they still getting further away? And then he felt it; the way the water was clinging to him like a thick cord, dragging further into the ocean at a terrifying pace. The waters began to whip up harder around him as he realized what was happening; he was caught in a riptide. 

He tried to remain calm and recall what to do in a situation like this one. Being dragged further and further he brought up all the facts he knew about riptides; they were only on the surface, he didn’t need to worry about being dragged under just quite yet, they’re extremely fast and extremely fatal, especially if someone struggled against one. If he dared to try and escape this whirlwind of water he would just have to remain complacent as possible, which with each passing second as the water was whipped up more, proved more and more difficult. 

As the time ticked by, it was getting harder to breath and instinctively he struggled to swim upwards which would have been much more effective if he knew which way was up. He saw bubbles and streaks of blue water being whipped around him and at this point he wasn’t quite sure if he was still awake or if he’d passed out and this was merely a dream. Faintly he remembered that in order to survive a riptide you shouldn’t thrash or swim, although it was a bit late for that. Iwaizumi distantly wondered if he was going to die, and a small voice in the back of his mind rejoiced at the idea of being able to see Tooru, assuming the stupid seal was dead, but a much larger voice; the one of reason, was screaming for him to swim despite this definitely not being how you survive a riptide. 

Logic, exhaustion and instinct were fighting each other, trying to determine what Hajime should do and in the end instinct and adrenaline won out. Hajime started a crawl in what he could only hope was the upward direction, fighting against the water that felt like a jet against him. He kept this up for about 20 seconds before exhaustion finally won the battle and he let himself go limp, too tired and lethargic to care what happened to him anymore. He let his breath go and looked in what he finally found to be up, he was too far under to swim there in time to get air and his lungs were burning, but he wasn’t too far to appreciate the light filtering through the murky and foamy water. And then an angel saved him, or maybe it was here to take him away, either way, a striped seal appeared just above him, surrounded by the light, like a halo. Iwaizumi could read the emotion twisted in anguish on the seal’s face, he reached his arms forward, to embrace the angel and hopefully end the pain everywhere. His vision became dotted and with a sharp tang in his head and a loud thwack against something extremely hard and pointy, everything turned black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tsurra would like to notify you all diving alone is very very unsafe and a big no no.
> 
> also  
> whoops just almost killed someone again  
> this is turning into a trend and i swear it doesn't start as intentional  
> it's more of "lmao wouldn't it be funny if xxx did x stupid thing" and "yes let's do it, sounds fantastic"  
> it'll get mildly better  
> meaning the next chapter isn't an almost death  
> Also!!  
> Many apologies for the lateness on this chapter! our school year ended, so we got caught up in finals then general relief that summer had begun then overall distracted. And, apologies ahead of time, as Tsurra (lucky girl) is getting to travel! and seeing as how this is cowritten.... well,,,,updates will not really be happening. i'm so sorry my dude it's just hard to word on my own.   
> We do have a chapter saved up, and I'll post that sometime while she's gone. And if she has the time and signal, we may attempt to write. 
> 
> Thank you all for sticking around so well for our shitshow here! You guys have no idea how much it means to us, and is literally the only reason why this went past the first couple of chapters.  
> I hope you all will continue with us here, despite set backs.  
> -Tasiec


	8. Chapter Seven

Tooru hovers over the hospital bed, human and clothed, wrapped in his seal skin like a blanket. He’s thankful he was there in time, that he was there at all. He didn’t realize that Iwa-chan would do something that even _he_ knew was a terrible idea. He shivers slightly, realizing just how close he came to losing his best friend and probably only friend. Too close. Way too close.

He had finally refound his sealskin the night before, after nearly two weeks of canvassing the field for it. Tooru had almost walked over it, completely missed it, out of sheer exhaustion. He had just wanted to give his Iwa-chan a sign that everything had turned out okay, and if he knew this would happen, he would’ve stayed away.

Bandages swathe Iwaizumi’s head, covering where he had been bleeding. He hadn’t been given any sort of painkiller that he could tell, after all, potential brain injury required close observation for any changes in behavior, and painkillers and sedation could cause those. Iwa-chan was gonna be miserable when he woke back up.

Iwaizumi stirs, just the slightest bit, and it sends Tooru spiraling down into panic. What if Iwa-chan still hated him? Tried to get to Oikawa and ended up hurting himself more? Then again, for all that Iwa-chan would be confined to bed rest, it could be a chance. But what if Iwaizumi was hurt? What if it made it hard to tell if he was okay? Tooru starts fidgeting nervously, shifting and wringing his hands, and a few tense second pass, his mind racing, before he makes a decision.

He couldn’t put Iwa-chan at more risk. He couldn’t. And that meant waiting to tell him for even longer. It meant that he had to figure something out, and fast. Tooru takes a deep breath, and scrutinizes the room around him.

Obviously, those in town had heard of him. And hopefully, with that, no one would think a seal found in the hospital too odd. But... he had clothes now. It’d be good to stash them away somewhere, he would need them later.

Tooru sighs, opens the door to glance around, no, no one’s coming, and strips as fast as he can. In doing so almost falling flat on his face. He didn’t seem to have the whole bipedal thing quite figured out yet. Tooru keeps a close eye on Iwaizumi as he slides his human clothing up under the hospital bed, hoping that he’d be able to get it back before anything happened. With that finish, he wraps himself closely in his seal skin, and shifts. And it just feels _right_.

* * *

 

Iwaizumi groggily comes to, chest tight and head pounding. He's uncertain if he's awake, dreaming or dead. He figures it's the first because being dead would feel better than the pain in his head and all over. He can still smell the salt of the ocean and with a panic, tries to breathe in and reassure himself that he is not still in the ocean, drowning, being taken by the angels of the ocean. But as he tries to breathe, finds he cannot, in fact, breathe.

Iwaizumi opens his eyes wide with a snap as his attempts to breathe fail. He tries to breathe again, but the same tight constriction is still on his chest and for a moment he's worried he's dying. He thrashes around, not quite ready to die, and his eyes focus on a large black and white thing sitting on him, staring at him.

“Too...ru?” He managed to choke out, his lungs were on fire and he was 90 percent certain he was just hallucinating and dying yet again, but no, the seal’s face lit up as Iwaizumi said his name and Hajime was certain they were in the hospital. And so, with a seal on top of him, Hajime did the most logical thing; he first hugged the seal as tightly as he dared without hurting some other part of his body, then he smacked the seal as hard as he could, shoved with a gigantic thrust away from the bed.

The seal fell off the bed looking confused at the actions that had just befallen him, and as soon as Iwaizumi was certain he could breathe again he yelled “Tooru, you fucking idiot! Do you know how worried I was about you? Where the hell have you been? You left me thinking you had… had…“ Iwaizumi hadn't noticed how glossy his eyes had been getting.

As he became aware he realized how stupid this station truly was; he, almost a fully grown adult man, was crying over a fucking extremely intelligent rare species of seal. This was idiotic. He cleared his throat, but refused to brush at his eyes, and instead willed nothing to happen. “How did you even get in here?” he asked simply, trying to calm his unruly emotions.

He manages to tip his head back just the slightest bit, keeping the traitorous tears where they are as he stares the seal down. Iwaizumi is mad. But he’s also an awful mix of relieved and absolutely _pissed_. He wants to strangle the stupid seal, but he also once to hug him close, keep him where he is. Hajime isn’t sure what he’d do if his seal went missing again. Maybe he’d be relieved, after all, Tooru was a constant source of annoyance and anger. The thought immediately makes him feel guilty. The fact that Tooru had disappeared had been a source of continuous stress, in addition to a distraction; worrying him more than he ever thought himself capable of.

Iwaizumi sighs before shifting over to one side in his hospital bed. “If you're going to lay up here, at least do it where I can breathe asshole.”

Tooru looks tempted by the offer, but Iwaizumi notices Tooru’s gaze fall upon the wheelchair sitting at the foot of the bed. The seal moved towards the contraption, deliberately keeping his eyes trained on Iwaizumi. It appeared to Iwaizumi that Tooru thought it he moved slowly enough and kept eye contact then Iwaizumi wouldn't notice him inch towards the wheelchair.

“Tooru…” he said in a warning tone. The seal ignores him, continuing on his slow path towards the chair. Hajime thinks about getting up and stopping him, but he’s already nauseous and doesn’t want to aggravate it. He settled for arranging himself in a half-sitting position with a glare focused on the animal in the room. At this point, the chair is almost close enough for Tooru to take a go at it, and it's obvious he's considering it.

“Tooru do no-” Iwaizumi is interrupting by the not-insignificant clatter of a seal practically jumping into a wheelchair, which then almost tips over, precariously balancing on one side before the thumping of all the wheels once again hitting the ground. The seal has managed to move the chair almost a meter away from its original resting spot, and then begins shifting his bulk, attempting to find a comfortable position in an item design for humans.

Tooru ends up mostly curled up in the wheelchair, hind flippers hanging onto the footrests and snout over the back, just to give Hajime a victorious smirk. Iwaizumi just barely resists the urge to find the nearest small object to chuck at the seal, mostly because a concerned nurse opens the door and pokes her head around the frame.

“Excuse me sir are you - is that a seal?” The nurse goes from gentle to incredulous and unbelieving in the blink of an eye, flabbergasted at Tooru, sitting there, smirking at her and Iwaizumi. The nurse seems to contemplate pretending like she didn't see anything, and go about her day, but then the seal _winks_ at her. She seems conflicted, torn between amazement at the animal, and then horror because there's a wild animal in the hospital _and it just winked at her and it was very deliberate_. Hajime sighs, making a placating gesture from his position in the bed.

“I'm sorry miss, ignore Tooru. He's... odd.”

“O-odd???” She spluttered out. “He’s a seal!!” she looks beyond Tooru to where Iwaizumi realizes the phone hanging on the wall. Apparently Tooru notices as well and puts two and two together; the woman was most likely going to call animal services or something of the like. Maybe if it was the aquarium then at least Iwaizumi had the possibility of the bribing Hanamaki and Matsukawa graciously with food or something to get Tooru out. He’s about to suggest to the nurse that she should call the aquarium when Tooru makes his move. Silently Iwaizumi curses Tooru for being so intelligent, he’s too smart for his own good.

The chaos swings into full blown action as Tooru leaps towards the nurse, and the nurse dives towards the phone. While the nurse and Tooru create a knot of tangled limbs, Iwaizumi formulates his own plan; get Tooru out of the fucking hospital where the animal clinic will surely try to hunt him down and put him to sleep so the pesky animal will stop terrorizing the poor beachside town of Wakkanai infested with egotistical seals. As they continue to fight for the phone, Iwaizumi painfully gets himself out of bed, head reeling as he stands. Slowly, he steps around the mess occurring in the middle of the room in a blur of human flesh color, black from Tooru and white from the both of them, to the wheelchair which he then wheels towards the door quickly, head feeling considerably better. Once the wheelchair was primed and readied he shouted out.

“TOORU JUMP!” and the fighting on the floor stopped suddenly, as the seal looked up with his big black eyes full of realization. Not a second later, there’s a seal flying through the air into the wheelchair and, seal in tow, Iwaizumi bolts.

Hajime makes a mad dash around the hospital, disoriented by the new environment but whipping around corners nonetheless. Soon, he realizes that this is a multileveled complex, jams a finger into a button for the elevator, and tensely waits for the cheerful ding and the doors to slide open. A doctor, clad in the crisp white jacket, goes to step out, only to freeze at the wild-looking bandaged man dashing into the metal box, all along with a seal the size of a person lounging upside down in a wheelchair. The doctor looks as though he should do something, but Iwaizumi dashes into elevator and closes the doors are sliding shut before the doctor could even blink.

Iwaizumi quickly scans the directory, indicating which floor is for which injury or ailment. He reads them over trying to find the exit so he could dump Tooru in the bushes somewhere hidden away from the public eye before the animal clinic arrived. As he reads, Tooru flops around in the wheelchair, presumably attempting to get comfortable, thrashing and making a metric shit ton of noise as he does so.

Iwaizumi eventually ends up giving him a slight smack on the head so Tooru can shut up and he could focus on reading. The letters on the directory kept spinning and changing size as Iwaizumi tried to read it. Dimly, he recalled that he was in the hospital for a reason. Though it was a bit late to head back to bed and he doubted he’d be welcomed back with open arms from the staff at the hospital. He groaned in both mental and physical pain as it occurred to him that he’d probably be the one paying for all of the damage Tooru caused, he often was. And would mostly likely continue being the one to, especially if the seal wouldn’t stop causing the problems.

* * *

 

Tooru, being the kind and gracious selkie he was, noticed Hajime struggling to read the directory to the hospital, Hajime must’ve been more dense than Tooru gave him credit for. Assuming that they were trying to find the exit, Tooru quickly scanned the directory and found the ground level and then, with magnificent grace and skill slung himself towards the buttons on the elevator’s wall. Of course, being a seal no one could really blame him when he ended up lighting up half of the buttons. Tooru realized that he had fucked up, but it seemed that Iwa-Chan wanted to reaffirm that with a stern glare that almost seemed to let out a deadly red aura of murderous intent. Tooru may have thought Iwa-Chan was a little dense, but he had faith that Iwa-Chan wouldn’t try to murder him over this,,, right?

“How are we supposed to get you out now, dumbass?” Tooru fidgets with his flippers a little, being made incredibly, extremely, unfathomably uncomfortable under Iwaizumi’s look of anger. He had only had very very minor experiences with elevators before. Okay, next to none. He’d heard about them. That was about it. He’d lived life as a seal, the moving metal cages are a purely human thing. It’s not _his_ fault. Hajime sighs, leaning heavily against the wall of the box.

“Okay, look I get it, you’re just a seal; you shouldn’t know that much about the way human contraptions work,” Tooru wonders if Iwa-Chan is suddenly telepathic or some sort of mind reader. “But that’s absolutely no excuse for being a dumbass.” Hajime stops and lets out another sigh, wincing at the sheer number of buttons lit up on the elevator. “Let’s just, get you out of here? So you can stop doing stupid shit in public? And just be a shitty smarter-than-average seal that does stupid things in a private location? Like your beach?”

Iwa-Chan looks tired and for the first time, like a wave gently washing over his flippers in the sand, Tooru has the epiphany of yes, Hajime is indeed injured. Tooru makes it his new mission to wrap this up as quietly and without much more movement as possible; by hiding.

The elevator dings as they arrive at the first of many floors that Tooru had selected. It opens to the pediatric floor, and Tooru decides this is as good a place as any to hide and wait out the chase of the wild animal. He’d blend right in with the adorable stuffed animals that were littered everywhere. As he abandoned the wheelchair and took off down the hallway he can hear confused shouts of “Hey wait, what?!” and “What are you doing you idiot???”s from Iwa-Chan behind him. The hallways are extremely empty, save for the occasional hospital looking equipment scattered in the hallways blocking Tooru from his mad dash through the labyrinth of sick children, which is a good thing for those who would usually be in the hallway. Today they were saved from the fate of being bulldozed by a full grown, very handsome, ribbon seal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello hello!  
> Thank you all for sticking around! Here's the new chapter - late, but as promised. Had to move the schedule a bit here, hah. Work won't be able to continue in truth until the 28th. Which is.... a while. *cough* I hope you all won't mind too but. You've all been fantastically patient and just over all wonderful with us! liKE HELL IT MEANS SO MUCH OKAY  
> -Tasiec
> 
> Had to edit out a sentence here, but the warning needs kept intact lmao:  
> "As they continue to fight for the phone, Iwaizumi painfully gets himself out of bed, head reeling as he stands (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME CHILDREN, IWAIZUMI IS A PROFESSIONAL IDIOT)"


	9. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for being to patient while we were on our kind-of-hiatus! We should more or less be back now, so thank you for sticking around!

As the strange pair, seal in front, woozy human on the verge of passing out chasing him, make their way through the halls of the pediatrics floor of the hospital, unknown to them, a sick little girl is being helped by a kind nurse lady, a worried father hovering to the side. Tooru slides around a corner, slipping a bit on the slick linoleum onto his side, and catches sight of the trio further down. He rapidly turns tail, almost tripping Iwa-chan in his sudden change of course.  Tooru spots the confusion on Iwa-Chan’s face, a split second before he shows off how much less graceful he is than Tooru by tripping over the seal’s tail and smashing right into the nurse, thankfully avoiding the child, although the loss of support from the nurse sends the child crashing down anyway. 

Upon contact with the floor the girl starts bawling and as an effect attracting the attention of the entire nearby populous. Granted that it’s not too much, seriously what’s up with the desolate hospital it’s creepy, Tooru takes a moment to appreciate Iwa-Chan’s mixed face of shock and dread as he backs away sputtering apologies. The moment doesn’t last long as Iwa-Chan turns to go back the way they came from, giving a smack to Tooru as an indicator that he should follow.

Obediently, and quite magnanimously if he would say so, Tooru follows Iwa-Chan into a hallway they had passed by on the way. Here, the walls had gone from stark white to cartoony images of forestry trees inhabited by owls with comically wide eyes covered by reading glasses. There were also small woodland creatures like bunnies, birds and the occasional deer painted in vivid reds and oranges to make it seem more warm and friendly to the children residing there, which made Tooru come to the conclusion that they were entering the long term patients’ area. 

As they entered the nearly silent forest wing filled with only the occasional beeps of machines, Iwa-Chan slowed his pace. It was apparent that no one was either around or awake and Tooru could see relief flow through Iwa-Chan; his shoulders had drooped and posture more generally relaxed rather than at the ready to run again. 

It seems as though they’re in the clear and can finally find a way to sneak out when Iwa-Chan pauses. Tooru peers up at him, wondering if his brain finally malfunctioned to the point where it broke entirely, however he was craning his head as if to listen carefully. Then, Tooru heard them; the voices. They started out softly but continued to grow louder in direct correlation to the volume of their footsteps, it sounded like a doctor talking to a nurse about things Tooru could never hope to understand. 

Iwa-Chan flung the nearest bush and skunk adorned door open, leading to a dark room with a curtain, a few sleek counters, and a child sized hospital bed. 

* * *

 

Iwaizumi enters the room without any hesitation, glancing over the area quickly before stopping. He hears that the footsteps are edging ever closer, hushed voices almost echoing in the hallway, and with growing dread he realizes that the stupid seal didn't follow him in. 

He whips around, peeking out into the hallway. He finds Tooru nowhere in sight. He darts outside, looking almost frantically around for his friend. He pushes aside his dizziness, his headache. Now was not the time. He has to protect Tooru. There. His eyes catch on the tail end of a flipper, and he quickly dives out of the room. He manages to misjudge the distance, ending with him sliding across the floor after the animal in front of him. His arms splayed in front, he manages to brush Tooru, just enough to get his attention. It causes him to pause, causing Iwaizumi to crash into him. 

Tooru makes an alarmed and disgruntled bark, and Hajime can distantly hear the nurse asking if the doctor had heard something strange. They were much too close now, causing Iwaizumi’s heart rate to skyrocket; probably not good for his concussion, then again none of what they were currently doing could be. By the sounds, they just had to turn a corner to be able to see them. Hajime strongly grabs onto Tooru’s tail as he scrambles to get up, sliding the seal across the floor as quickly as he can into the room. Halfway, steps too close, getting closer, Tooru seems to get the idea, helping Iwaizumi move his bulk. As the seal finally crosses the threshold, the nurse and doctor turn the corner, seeing the door swing shut with a near silent click. 

“Are one of the children wandering around at this hour?”

“Sir, that room was just cleaned out today.”

The pair’s confused remarks continue, and the footsteps make their way purposefully towards their door. Iwaizumi unconsciously holds his breath, looking for any sort of nook or cranny to conceal himself in. Tooru blinks at him, managing to convey near cluelessness. Couldn't that dumbass tell that they couldn't let themselves be caught? Or maybe he was just convinced he'd be able to get out of it. Stupid seal constantly bit off more than he can chew. 

The door handle begins turning, and Hajime’s panic truly sets in once again. He darts into the small bathroom, motioning frantically for Tooru to hurry up. As the door begins to crack open, slowly in case there is a child and as to not to create much noise, the seal finally understands. The small shower stall has barely enough room for the two, but there's not another place they can fit. One of the hospital staff steps into the room. Iwaizumi’s heart picks up even more, thundering in his ears. 

“I'm not seeing anyone in here. I wonder what happened.” The footsteps retreat once again, and the door quietly clicks shut. Hajime lets out a deep breath and looks down at the seal he's practically stepping on. He shakes his head in irritation before stepping out of the stall and sitting up against the counter with the sink. He needs a couple seconds. Hajime had probably severely overestimated his condition.

* * *

 

After the moment had passed Iwa-Chan slumped against Tooru and the counter they were currently leaning on. The wall was a purple and soothing variation of the forest scenery outside and the sides of the counters were embellished with pairs of, seemingly, lovebirds with their heads bent together and beaks touching with small lavender hearts above them, however, Tooru deemed this an unfit resting place and shoved Iwa-Chan towards the tiny bed directly in front of them. 

Groaning, Iwa-Chan stood and used Tooru’s head as support to get up, he’d been neglecting just how injured he really was. 

“Stop being obnoxious you shit seal.” Nevermind, he was treating Iwa-Chan about right. Iwaizumi sits down on the far too small bed and swings his legs up, attempting to be quiet as he made himself comfortable as possible. Just to teach him a lesson Tooru made sure to flop up as messily as possible and whack Iwa-Chan just a little on the way up. 

 

“You little brat…” Iwaizumi grumbless sleepily, reminding Tooru of a half asleep hedgehog. The thought caused Tooru to let out a hearty snort, earning him a flick to the forehead from Iwa-Chan. 

 

“Shut up and let me sleep.” His eyelids were already drooping and Tooru ultimately decided that this was not the best time to be sassy and curled up next to Iwa-Chan as best he could without shoving either of them off. 

As he listens to Iwaizumi’s breathe soften into a calm rhythmic melody, Tooru stares up at the love-dove ridden purple ceiling, wondering how much longer he should keep up this lie to Iwaizumi. If it could be considered a lie anyways. If it could be considered a lie. A lie of omission at the most. That didn’t help his guilt at all though.

It had already been more than a decade now and he’d only once met Iwa-Chan in his other form, which had resulted in more heartache than it had been worth. But this wasn’t right either. Even someone as almost perfect as he could see that. With a heavy heart, Tooru carefully slips out of the bed once he was certain that Iwa-Chan was indeed asleep. 

Tooru carefully maneuvers himself out of the room, carefully checking for any passerby. With a deep breath, he focuses inwards, and his seal pelt falls away. He hears the click of a door closing, and a gasp. Shit. That’s a human he was just seen oh god what is he going to do-

“ _ Holy shit why the hell are you naked put some clothes on man! _ ” The man yells, seeming to only have a problem that in transitioning from man to seal he happens to not get any clothes.

“Why is that your problem?” Tooru shouts back, gesturing at the shed seal skin.

“Why isn’t it  _ yours? _ ”

“Never said it wasn’t, it’s only one of the many problems I’m currently juggling.” He says, mildly offended and trying to sound casual as if he weren’t currently standing in front of a stranger in the middle of a hallway buck naked with his sealskin around his feet. 

There was an awkward moment of silence as both of them seemed to take in the situation, Tooru taking in the man’s odd appearance;  he had sleek black hair sticking up in a way that seemed to rebel against gravity, most likely a monstrous abomination created by mounds of styling gel, and a piercing hazel eyed gaze inspecting the very naked Tooru. 

However neither his natural features, nor his gaze was the weird part, the weirdest part about the guy standing in front of Tooru was the gaudy get-up he was wearing. 

His costume consisted of a small white diamond shaped mask, a black top hat carefully perched amidst his hair refusing the acceleration towards the earth with a net force greater than 9.8 meters per square seconds downward, probably thanks to hair gel, a ridiculous cape with bright red coating the inside, creating an off balance focal point and to top it off an elegant looking open black tuxedo with yellow buttons and a white dress shirt with a white bowtie. Sandwiched in between the two was a white vest that barely stood out from the shirt, making Tooru question its purpose in the outfit.

After admiring the zany ensemble on the man’s body, Tooru decided. He leant on the door frame trying to strike what he hoped was a somewhat convincing pose and stated something he hoped he wouldn't end up regretting. 

“ Man I’d love to get into your pants right now." The stranger looked taken aback for a moment before quickly recovering with a smooth tone of his own, in addition to a sly smile. 

“Are you a tower? because Eiffel for you.” The man winks, barely visible through the mask, and Tooru rethinks his phrasing. He honestly wasn't sure what he was expecting to gain from that. The suit-clad stranger seems to take his silence as interest, sidling up to him. 

“There’s quite a few quiet places I know where we could get away to here.” Not quite what he had meant, but he was still flattered at the prospect. As politely as possible he replied with a hasty explanation. 

"At another time I'd be up for it, but not right now. I mean literally. Let me borrow your pants."  the man seems to understand quickly enough with Tooru’s appearance and the clarification Tooru attempted to provide. 

“Well, seeing as I’m not much into exhibitonism I think I have a better solution,” Tooru liked the sound of that “but it requires payment.” he did not like the sound of that. 

“In case you weren’t aware,” Tooru gestured to himself up and down, using an incredibly dry tone “I don’t exactly have anything on me of value.” The tuxedo adorned masked man sighed as if Tooru were the weird one in this conversation… okay maybe he was. 

“That’s not what I meant, here follow me.” With a swish of his flamboyantly red cape, which fanned out fantastically with the motion, he turns on his heel and starts walking towards a more dimly lit area. Tooru hesitated to follow, unsure if he should trust this stranger. Then Tooru considered the fact that this man wasn’t running away to alert someone even after watching him strip out of a seal, and followed quickly. 

They walk in an unnerving silence toward an illuminated closet labeled “staff only” and “supply closet”. The stranger fumbles around with his cape for a moment before producing a key chain, most likely leading to the door. Tooru’s ready to follow the stranger into the walk in closet but the man doesn’t take another step. Instead, he turns around and looks Tooru directly in the eyes with a casual smirk. 

“So pay up; what’s your name and species?”

“Really?” Tooru had never managed such a tone in his life. It was bored, scathing, disappointed, and just generally negative. 

“That's what I’d like for your side of the deal, yes.”

“You saw me turn from a  _ seal _ to a human.”

“And that has to do with...?” Tooru doesn't even reply to him. He slowly lifts a hand up to his face, resting his fingers delicately on his forehead before letting out a deep sigh. The man lets out his own sigh before smirking. “Is it too much for you to just say it?”

“Fine. Oikawa Tooru, Selkie.” The words are harsh and snapped. This man is obviously going to be irritating, though Tooru bet he could give him a run for his money. 

“Well, this sure has been an insightful visit. Been awhile since I've met some of your kin. I didn't know there was another one of us around here.” Another one? His kin? Are there more Selkies in his beachside town?

“Are you-”

“Nope. I'm not a seal.” If this masked man wasn't a Selkie, then what could he be?

There were myths from around the world about others that share similarities with the Selkie myths, though he'd brushed them off as cases of mistaken identity. After all, what were the chances of more magical shape shifting races bound to the sea? He almost want to think the stranger is human, that he just knows about Tooru’s kind. But it seemed as if there was a more tangible connection between them from his phrasing.

Tooru waited for the man to say more, anything really; a name, his species, any sort of elaboration. A few moments passed without sort of enlightenment as Tooru continued to stare at this stranger, as if he stared long enough this enigma of a man would suddenly click like clockworks. 

The stranger seemed to notice his inquisitive stares and picks up on the hint that Tooru is simply dying to know more.

“Oho? What’s this? Not satisfied? I do believe that that was the extent of our impromptu transaction though.” The stranger in his overly elaborate get up, the fact they’re in a hospital making it even more absurd, smirks. 

Tooru suddenly felt mildly bad if this is how he caused Iwa-Chan to feel on a daily basis, but then he remembered it was Iwaizumi.  He can’t put his finger on why, but surely  Iwa-Chan deserved his daily dose of annoyance, and no less from a selkie as great as Tooru; he should feel honored. However, this stranger’s annoyance was not kindly accepted, and Tooru’s sass meter was getting dangerously high. 

He harrumphed “Fine, I didn’t want to anything about this weird and possibly dangerous stranger dressed in cosplay, wandering around the hospital late at night with a knowledge of mythical creatures. Why would I?” he asked, trying to be sarcastic as possible. “Just, tell me your “better solution” already, won’t you?” to emphasise his point he put the hand holding the seal skin on his hip to accentuate his current state of nakedness and the used the other to gesture vaguely towards the closet. 

The stranger held up a patient finger, indicating Tooru should wait, and wait he did as he disappeared into the closet. After hearing a few things rummaged in and more things falling off of shelves, the stranger reemerged looking disappointed and apologetic. 

“Sorry, couldn’t find anything in there to smuggle you out.” Tooru didn’t know quite what to think, he was currently stuck between furious and terrified. He was bound to be found now. 

“Oh!” Tooru was pulled out of his internal crisis by the stranger’s sudden exclamation. 

“What is it? Did you think of something else?” Tooru asks in a rush. 

“No! I felt something in my hat just now.” he said, and Tooru hoped to god that he wasn’t about to do what he was thinking. 

The stranger takes off his hat and reaches his arm in much further than he should be able and he locks eyes with Tooru as he smiles brightly. 

"Found it!" and out comes a patient dress perfect for escaping the hospital appearing as a sick patient. "The name's Kuroo Tetsurou by the way." he says as holds the clothes out for Tooru to take. This man infuriated Tooru. They would get along  _ perfectly _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmm so since we're here and all... any guess for what Kuroo might be here in the universe?  
> Thank you so much for reading this chapter!


End file.
